I grew up with them.  They seemed unremarkable.  Hard workers, who loved their wives, were regular at church, and often gathered outside the front doors of the sanctuary to finish that last cigarette before service began.  Their banter was lighthearted.  Laughter and opinions were copiously offered.  The aroma of Old Spice and Vitalis was never absent.  They were a band of brothers, bound by a time and place far removed from the peace of my childhood.

I had heard of some of those places.  Bataan, Coral Sea, Okinawa, Normandy.  Places that, when voiced, would silence laughter and quiet banter.  The old men of my childhood were the boys that fought some of the most devastating battles of the Twentieth Century.  Some endured the horrors of Japanese prison camps.  Others landed on French beaches, code-named ‘Utah’ and ‘Omaha’ to face the furor of Der Fuhrer.

The German strategy was simple: engage the massive Allied invasion force at the waterline and do not allow them to make it off the beach.   And many did not.  D-Day, June 6, 1944, was a pivotal day in modern history.  While not the end of WWII, it was certainly the turning point.  A day that demonstrated that Hitler’s days were numbered.   And his grip on Europe would be broken.  In less than a year, the Allies would be in Berlin and the malignant tyrant, whose name is even now synonymous with evil, would lie dead in a secret bunker.

On D-day, Eisenhower and the Allies threw down the gauntlet and landed on Hitler’s turf.  When the day was over, the battle still raged on.  But ultimate victory was assured.  It was the beginning of the end of the short-lived Thousand Year Reich.  And in Mark 11, with the account of what is often called “The Triumphal Entry” Jesus throws down the gauntlet.  Time and time again he has assaulted the kingdom of darkness and plundered the strong man’s house from Galilee to Jericho.  Now he has set his face like a flint toward Jerusalem and the ultimate conflict, toward betrayal, rejection and death.  But also, resurrection and victory.   In Colossians, Paul described it this way,

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.  Colossians 2:13-15

Throughout the Gospel of Mark Jesus silenced men and demons who tried to declare his identity.  Just as no man takes his life from him, but he lays it down and takes it up again, he is in complete control of revealing his identity as the greater Son of David, the Messiah, the Coming One, the Son of the Most High and the True King of Israel.  And as he enters Jerusalem one last time to fulfill all God’s redemptive promises, destroy all the works of the devil and defeat the last enemy, death, he shows us exactly what type of Savior is needed and provided.    

Is the Jesus you believe, one you have imagined who conforms to your expectations, felt-needs, or popular opinion?  Or is the Jesus you trust, the Jesus who revealed himself in the pages of the Bible as a sovereign, suffering, and reigning King who comes to deliver you out of all your sin? Join us as we examine Mark 11:1-11 and consider Jesus’ bold proclamation that he comes as the true King of Israel to defeat an enemy more deadly than Roman legions and tyrannical emperors. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.